Invasion of the Caterpillars!

One year it was whiteflies, another year it was earwigs, this year we are overrun with caterpillars at the no-spray Sproul Rose Farm.  They are devouring buds and new growth like crazy.  Certain seedlings appear to be more affected than others, I suppose that they are tastier, where all of the developing flower buds are gone!

Since I have not sprayed at all outside of the greenhouse for many years, I am not going to start now.  Instead, I am getting outside morning and evening, picking the caterpillars off the seedlings using tweezers.

No doubt, this last caterpillar has already engorged himself on many developing rose buds, and is on his way up this stem in search of another meal.  I am happy to say that he did not make it to his next meal...

Blooming Inside and Out!

The 2015 seedlings that were potted up and move outside of the greenhouse have started to bloom.  Soon, it will be a riot of color.

Here is one of my favorites so far.  It came from a cross of 'Singin' in the Rain' X [('Marmalade Skies' X 'Baby Love') X 'First Impression'].  Based on the size of the bloom on this young plant, I think that it will be a hybrid tea.  I have 3 seedlings from this cross that I have kept for further evaluation. 

The next seedling is a brand new 2016 seedling that is blooming for the first time today.  It's pollen parent is 'Knock Out' and this is the best blotch so far that I've seen on a direct 'Knock Out' seedling.

As you can see, it's anthers have been removed.  Though perhaps premature, I decided to use it's pollen in a cross today.  I like to move interesting seedlings into breeding quickly in order to save time.  Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't!

Beautiful Spring Foliage

Don't you love fresh new spring foliage?!  There is so much hopefulness in it.  

Seen below, the rose seedlings at the Sproul Rose Farm are about to bloom.  With our "el nino" weather, I have been worrying about the dreaded downy mildew fungus showing up again this year (and some seedlings are showing signs of it).  Hopefully, with the warmer weather that we have been enjoying, the outbreak will be minimal since I do not spray.

Here are some closeups of some of my favorites.  The first is of a rugosa mini coming from L56-1 x Mr. Ralph Moore's "Pink Fragrant Rugosa".

The next is from a complex cross having 'Double Knock Out' as a grandparent on the seed parent side by a cross of a seedling coming from 'Gemini' x 'First Impression' on the pollen parent side. 

Seen below is another favorite seedling that is totally thornless coming from a cross of a 'Darlow's Enigma' Hulthemia seedling by a "Basye's Thornless" Hulthemia seedling.  It has interesting grey-green foliage.

And, lastly, my absolute favorite seedling with regard to foliage (the blooms however are not that exciting) coming from a cross of L56-1 x "Basye's Thornless".

First Seedling to Bloom 2016

It has begun!  This is the first bloom with many more to come in the next few weeks.  Not sure if I can keep up with it all - but it sure is fun!

I couldn't help trying out the watercolor enhancement in Photoshop.  Someday I may take up painting again.

Blooms and Fruit Coming Soon!

It was just 2 1/2 weeks ago that I noticed the first rose bud forming on the new seedlings.   Now, there are many more forming, and that means that the blooms are not far off.  Soon the sepals on the seedlings below will start to break open and reflex, showing the petals beneath. Will there be an attractive color, a pleasant fragrance?

There are other seedlings blooming and about to bloom.  These are not roses, but are from other seeds that were planted in 2014.  The first below is coming from lilac seeds.  Although I have 7 lilac seedlings, this is the only one that will be blooming this year.  Hopefully, the others will bloom next year.  Wouldn't it be nice if lilacs bloomed throughout the year like roses?

The next seedlings are blueberry seedlings.  I have many more of these, and several are forming fruit for the first time this year.  They were mentioned in a post in 2014 when they were being potted up out of the rose seedlings beds (see Hulthemia Persica Seedlings (Part 3)).

Lastly, in the photo below, there is a seedlings coming from the blueberry variety named "Pink Lemonade".  It has unusual foliage coloration.  It is not developing fruiting flower buds this year, but I will keep it based on it's interesting foliage.  Hopefully, it will produce fruit next year.  

Path Break - Amaryllis

So, what does this post have to do with rose breeding?  Not much, but it is about planting seeds, and amaryllis are flowers, and, I wanted to make a post on February 29th since this is a leap year!

We always grow an amaryllis during the Christmas season.  We usually buy a "red" one, but almost always we get a light orange one.  This year we got a red one named "Mammoth Red".  It turn out being true to it's name and looked just like the photo.  There were actually 2 blooming stalks and each stalk had 4 flowers (sorry I didn't get a photo of ours, but it really did look like the photo below).  So I decided to try my luck at getting seeds.  I looked at a couple of youtube videos, followed the directions, and viola!  We have amaryllis sprouts!

It took 6 or 7 weeks for the seed pods to ripen, and they produced these black papery seeds.

After harvesting, the seeds were allowed to dry for 3 days and then planted.  Another 3 weeks later (just like the youtube videos said), they have started sprouting.  There were 7 baby amaryllis that I counted when I took this photo (can you find them all?).  Now, I just have to wait 2 or 3 years to see the first blooms.  This is a fun side-experiment, but not near as fun as rose breeding!  So my advice to you, is consider planting amaryllis seeds, but I suspect that you will get more fun and quicker results planting rose seeds.  Give it a try!

Seedlings of Happenstance

As is typical of most years, the first pollinations of the year are based on what is blooming at the time.  2015 was no exception.  Last year there were 2 seedlings that were blooming early that I had not consider to combine in a cross.  However, since they were blooming, I decided, "why not?!"  The seed parent was Q199-1 (a single petalled Hulthemia), while the pollen parent that I used was P15-1 (a very double, bright yellow mini).  More detailed descriptions can be found in the post entitled, "First Pollination of 2015".  It turns out that the very first pollination ended up failing, meaning that the hip dried up and fell off before any seeds had formed.  However, after making the cross, I decided to repeat it several times, such that at the end of the pollinating season, there were 31 hips forming that ended up producing 481 seeds.  Of these, so far 266 seedlings have sprouted.  Had the parents not been the first roses to bloom, I would not have made the cross.  Perhaps something beautiful will come out of this cross of happenstance.  :)

It won't be long and these will be blooming!

The very first flower bud of the year was seen yesterday on another cross that germinated a bit earlier (see below).

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day with an un-named floribunda seedling!

The Best Seedlings of 2015

The new rose seedlings are starting to sprout like weeds!  Counted 918 on Saturday and germinations increasing daily.  The best early germinator continues to be 'Pearl Sanford', with 26% of the seeds already germinated.

It will be a few weeks before any of the new seedlings show off their first blooms.  During this time of the year, I like to reflect on the best seedlings of last year (2015), looking to use most of these for crosses in 2016.

So here they are, the best of 2015.

2016 Rose Germinations - Part 1

They're sprouting!

Above are seedlings of a mini Hulthemia R82-1 crossed with a larger Hulthemia Q247-3.  This seed parent is having the best early germinations so far.  Q247-3 is one of my best Hulthemias and is shown below.

Next, is a seedling from one of my more anticipated crosses, a seedling of 'Midnight Blue' X 'Blue For You'.  The cotyledons have a purplish coloration, so I am hopeful that this suggests that it's blooms will have a nice more purple to blue coloration.  We should get a better idea about it's bloom color in about 8 weeks - I can't wait!

What New Roses Await in 2016?

The seedling beds are all planted again and ready to go!

First each group of crosses were planted together and tags were placed to indicate the parentage of each cross. 

Next, a top dressing of perlite was used to cover the newly planted seeds.  This is done to provide a dryer surface layer to help prevent a fungus from growing that is deadly to new seedlings, called "damp off".

This year we planted just under 41,000 seeds.  Some of my most anticipated crosses are listed below.  J76-3 is 'Thrive!', and I206 is 'First Impression'.  G168-2 is 'Thrive!'s seed parent and Q117-3 is a thornless remontant seedling coming from a a seedling of 'Thrive!' known as L56-1 crossed with "Basye's Thornless".  Q220-1 is a seedling of 'Midnight Blue' X "Basye's Thornless".  I am especially hopeful for something interesting coming from the cross of Q220-1 X 'Blue For You'.

We should have the first blooms in about 8 weeks.  I can't wait!

Late 2015 Hulthemia Blooms

We are starting to empty the greenhouse again of all the surviving seedlings.  Here are a few of the late blooms to brighten your December day.

The first one below is of a mini that I hope to release in the next 2-3 years depending on how it does next year outside.  It seems to have good cleanliness and vigor.

The next seedling has changed color as the weather has cooled and now has a nice burnt orange coloration.  This seedling and the seedling following it both have "Basye's Thornless" as a grandparent.  Unfortunately this bloom did not open flat and instead had one of the petals curled back behind the bloom, but you get the sense of it's unusual color.

This next seedling has quite a lot of petals for a descendent of "Basye's Thornless" since singleness is a fairly strong trait.  It's blotch is not that large, but still seems to add interest to the blooms.

Unlike the seedling above, the following seedling has a very large blotch, in fact it has the largest and darkest blotch of this year's batch of seedlings.  Like most of the seedlings that I have raised with these darker blotches, it has a lot of Hulthemia persica baggage: stunted rangy growth and thorns.  Although this seedling is not good enough to name or release, it may be useful as a breeder for future generations.

The next seedling hopefully will have good black spot resistance since one of it's parents is a Will Radler variety.  It seems to be in almost constant bloom.

The final seedling shown below is one of my favorites this year.  It is thornless and has been in constant bloom.  It is also a grandchild of "Basye's Thornless" and seems to have good resistance to powdery mildew.